Challenging Matt

by Julianna Morris

  The judge, moved by Frances’s difficult upbringing and her mother’s failing health, had offered her a second chance. Instead of giving her a ten-year prison sentence, he’d suspended her sentence as long as she met certain conditions, a common solution for people with a high potential for rehabilitation.

  For Frances, her conditions were threefold. One, either attend college or obtain full-time legitimate employment, including any position where she applied her skills for a positive end. Two, pay restitution to the victim. Three, do not break any local, state or federal laws.

  The judge had added an ominous warning to the last one. Miss Jefferies, that means you don’t even pick up a dime off the street if it isn’t yours. As much as your suspended sentence is a gift, it is also your burden. For the duration of your suspension, if you appear before the bench for any infraction, no matter how minor, the court will evaluate your case with a more critical, censorious eye. And that’s mild compared to what a prosecutor will do.

  As if she had a yen to ever break a law again.

  As far as college or a job, her probation officer matched her “skills” to Vanderbilt Insurance, a company that was looking for an investigator to track stolen jewels and antiquities.

  Sometimes these investigations, such as the one today, required her pickpocket skills. She would be taking back the Lady Melbourne brooch, which was the legal property of Vanderbilt Insurance, since they had already paid the fifty-thousand-dollar insurance claim from the museum.

  “Remember to feed Teller around six,” Frances said. “Any later, he gets cranky.” She’d named her cat after her favorite magician.

  “He gets cranky?” Her dad shot a look at the fat golden-haired Persian cat lying sprawled across the back of the couch. “That cat is so laid-back, sometimes I put a mirror under his nose to make sure he’s still breathing.”

  “I know you think he has no personality.”

  “I never said that. I merely suggested he might be suffering from narcolepsy.” Yells from the crowd drew his attention back to the TV. “Idiot refs,” he muttered, “calling fouls against Miami again. Might as well take off those black-and-white shirts and wear Celtics jerseys.”

  With a smile, she touched her dad’s shoulder. He grumped a lot at these sports games, but she’d take that any day over those lengthy silences after he first moved in.

  It hadn’t been easy convincing him to move out of the apartment he’d shared with her mom. It wasn’t long after her mother’s death, and when her dad wasn’t frozen with grief, he was going through old photo albums, cleaning or filling ink into one of her favorite fountain pens, watching movies they’d seen together, even the “chick flick” ones he swore he’d never see again.

  He didn’t want to be a burden, and Frances hadn’t wanted to suggest he needed help.

  “Still auditioning as an opener for that lounge act?” she asked.

  He flexed his fingers. “Don’t think so. Need the ol’ hands to stop giving me a bad time.”

  His arthritis flare-ups were making it increasingly difficult for him to perform magic tricks. Moving his fingers as he practiced the card trick helped keep his joints somewhat mobile and stymied the arthritis.

  “Gotta take off now, Dad.”

  “Meeting Charlie afterward?”

  “Yes.”

  She typically met with Charlie Eden, her boss and mentor at Vanderbilt Insurance, right after an assignment to discuss the case. Although it was more common for Vanderbilt investigators to only provide written reports to their bosses, her situation was unique, as Charlie submitted monthly accounts to the court on her progress at Vanderbilt.

  Today, if all went well, she hoped to also hand him the Lady Melbourne brooch.

  But there was more to the case.

  Vanderbilt believed the thief who stole the pin had also stolen four fifth-century-BC Greek silver tetradrachm coins worth several million dollars from a New York numismatic event two years ago. Both thefts had similar crime signatures, including state-of-the-art technology to circumvent surveillance systems and cutting torches to access vaults.

  “That Charlie, he’s a good man. Husband material, if you ask me.”

  “Dad, I’ve told you before, I don’t feel that way about him.”

  “But he’s gobsmacked over you.”

  “Gobsmacked? What does that mean?”

  “Astonished. Over the moon. Heard a sports announcer use it the other day.”

  “Did he say he was over the moon about me?”

  “No.” He picked up his cards and started flipping through them. “Don’t need to be a mentalist to read that man’s brain. He’d like to make you his Zig Zag Girl.”

  Zig Zag was the name of a magic trick Jonathan Jefferies used to perform with his wife, where he appeared to cut her into thirds, yet she’d emerge completely unharmed. The secret was that the true magician was her mom, who knew when to zig and zag to make the illusion look real. Jonathan, who credited his wife with the magic that made their marriage work, liked to call her his Zig Zag Girl.

  He flipped the top card over and frowned. “Plus, he’s a lawyer.”

  Charlie, nearly fifteen years older than Frances, was a very successful lawyer. Women in the office swore he looked like Michael Douglas in his salad days, which was probably why Frances thought of the villain Gordon Gekko every time she saw him. Charlie had the distinguished career, dapper clothes, perennially tanned, handsome looks, but...something about him turned her off. Couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  “God help me if he were a neurosurgeon.” She leaned over and planted a light kiss on her dad’s forehead.

  This close, she caught a whiff of peanut butter. The man was incorrigible, and she was ready to say as much when she caught the pain in his eyes as he glanced at her cheek.

  She quickly straightened, looked around for her clutch bag. “There’s some leftover Chinese in the fridge. Maybe enough lettuce for a salad. Lay off the peanut butter, okay? I know,” she said, anticipating his argument, “it’s full of nutrients, and saturated fats are a good thing, but the doctor said one serving a day, which I believe you’ve already had.”

  “Bought some Spam the other day,” he said, ignoring her instruction. “I’ll probably make a sandwich with it.”

  “We’re pathetic. One of us needs to learn how to cook.”

  “Yeah, your mom spoiled us. She’d never opened a can of soup when I met her, but after we got married, that girl...” He gave his head a wistful shake. “Studied cookbooks the way she did her old college books. By the time you were born, she made the best cheeseburger this side of Milwaukee. Some fancy French foods, too, when we had the money. What was that one with chicken and wine?”

  “Coq au vin.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. We should learn how to make that one of these days.”

  But they wouldn’t. Sometimes Frances wondered if the two of them used their lack of cooking skills as a way of holding on to her mother. If neither of them replaced Sarah Jefferies’s role as family chef, then that spot would always be hers.

  “Wonder where I left my bag,” she muttered, looking around.

  “On the dining-room table we never eat at. Hey, baby girl, call me when you’re done? I’ll keep my cell phone next to me. I worry about you on these cases.”

  “You know me, Miss Cautious. I’ll be fine. But I promise to call when I’m done.”

  Her dad had never owned a cell phone before she bought him one after he moved in. He thought they were frivolous—said phones were things to get away from, not have strapped to your body at all times. But after she explained she wanted to stay in touch, especially when she was out working a case, he gave in.

  Walking briskly to the dining room, Frances called out, “I should be home around eight.”

  “So it’s dinner
with Charlie, eh?”

  “Business dinner,” she corrected, grabbing her bag. She opened it to double check that she had the key fob for her rental car.

  “Valentine’s Day is next week, you know,” he yelled. “Maybe you two could—”

  “No, we couldn’t,” she yelled back. “Love you. Bye!”

  As she shut the front door behind her, Frances wished her dad would get off this Charlie matchmaking kick. She made good money, could comfortably support the two of them, so unless Ryan Gosling wandered into her life with a “Frances Forever” tattoo over his heart, she was fine without a boyfriend or husband.

  Frances glanced at the distant dark clouds and hoped they weren’t an omen. Despite her analytical side, she had a superstitious streak. Even after days of preparation, she’d still get “preshow” jitters.

  Part of her suspended sentence had been to see a therapist, a lovely older woman named Barbara. She’d suggested that whenever Frances got the jitters, to remind herself she could only control what was in her power and let everything else take its course.

  Only problem with that thinking was that Frances liked to control every aspect of her cases. Liked to know every nuance of an investigation, every possible fact she could dredge up. It gave her confidence. Some people felt she had too much confidence, but that was their perception. Or, she liked to think, an acknowledgment of her well-crafted illusion.

  But letting everything else take its course?

  That would take magical thinking on her part, something even a magician’s daughter couldn’t conjure up.

  * * *

  SITTING AT THE DESK in the reception area at Morgan-LeRoy Investigations, Braxton Morgan read the text message from his grandmother Glenda a third time, mostly because he couldn’t believe it the first two.

  I entered you in the Magic Dream Date Auction at Sensuelle on Valentine’s Day. Raise $$ for Keep ’Em Rolling & the guy who brings in the highest bid wins a car!

  It wasn’t that Braxton was against raising money for Grams’s favorite charity, Keep ’Em Rolling, which provided wheelchairs for those in need. The cause was close to her heart, as she was a wheelchair user herself. And he’d love nothing more than to ditch his clunker and drive a new car. Until recently he’d avoided any activity that put him in the public eye, but he was ready to get out and about again, test the Vegas waters.

  Not so long ago, as the manager of the high-end strip club Topaz, he’d lived la vida loca en Las Vegas—plush penthouse, Italian designer suits, kick-ass Porsche. At first he pretended not to notice when his boss, a Russian named Yuri Glazkov, muscled people for money or forged documents. After a while he had to admit Yuri was a thug, but Brax figured that as long as he kept his nose clean, no problem.

  But like that old saying “You are what you eat,” you’re also who you hang out with.

  After a few years working with Yuri, Braxton had been willing to break a law here and there for his boss, justifying it by telling himself he never indulged in violence or threats, just fudging a few numbers. Hell, everybody cheated on their taxes, right? But after Yuri got arrested for tax fraud, Brax couldn’t pretend he wasn’t on his way to being a thug, too.

  But, when he tried to leave his job at Topaz, Yuri threatened to go to the authorities with evidence and witnesses to a crime Braxton had supposedly committed. All mocked-up evidence, given by “witnesses” who were Yuri’s buddies, but Braxton didn’t want to be railroaded into prison, so he stayed, waiting for the day he could make a clean break.

  Which he finally got last August when he and his brother, Drake, along with a handful of Vegas police officers and a sharp arson investigator named Tony Cordova, headed up a sting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino that resulted in Yuri’s arrest on a slew of nasty felony charges, including attempted murder and extortion. After Yuri’s defense attorney got him released on a half-mil bond, the Russian thug had been keeping a low profile. Which was fine with Braxton. No Yuri meant a happy, peaceful life, even if he had been forced to rebuild his from scratch.

  At least he still had his designer clothes, but he was back living with his mom and grandmother, and drove a banged-up turquoise Volvo with two balding tires. He hated turquoise.

  He looked at his grandmother’s text message again.

  He’d done his best to man up, never complain about his shift from big spender to budget shopper, but no way was he parading like a slab of beef in front of hordes of women fueled by hormones and free booze.

  He glanced at the grandfather clock. Quarter after three. His mother would still be at her Wednesday bowling league, but Grams was either at home or her boyfriend’s down the street. Since she’d just texted this message, she was probably available to read his response right now.

  He began tapping the keypad on his smartphone.

  Grams, I’m not a slab of...

  The desk phone jangled. Why Val LeRoy, his brother’s wife and P.I. partner, insisted on keeping this dinosaur landline service was beyond his understanding.

  “Brax,” yelled Drake from the back office, “get that? I’m on another call.”

  Braxton lifted the handset, mentally cursing the tangled phone cord that tied him like a leash to the phone.

  “Morgan-LeRoy Investigations,” he answered, staring at his unfinished text message to his grandmother. Sounded hostile. Not good. He punched the back arrow to erase letters.

  Grams, I’m...

  “My apologies,” a man said, “I thought I dialed Diamond Investigations.”

  The caller had a strong Russian accent, which brought back bad memories. Although he detected a faint, almost imperceptible British lilt, which he’d never heard in any of Yuri’s crowd.

  “The agency name changed to Morgan-LeRoy Investigations last October,” Brax explained, waiting in case the man had questions about the former owner, Jayne Diamond. Sometimes callers didn’t know Jayne had died last October after a brief illness or that she’d bequeathed the agency to her protégé, Val LeRoy, and Val’s husband, Drake Morgan, Braxton’s identical twin brother.

  “Ah, I see. I would like to speak to Mr. Morgan, please.”

  Probably meant his brother, as Braxton had only come on board recently as a security consultant. “Drake is on another call. I can transfer you to his voice mail.”

  Adjusting the sleeve of his blue-striped Armani shirt, he frowned at the phone, wondering if he knew how to do that. He tapped a button on the phone console that apparently turned on the speakerphone, because when the caller spoke again, his voice echoed through the outer office.

  “Braxton Morgan,” the man clarified. “I wish to speak to Braxton Morgan.”

  Brax hesitated. The Russian thing... Nah, he’d let the paranoia pass. Couldn’t afford to turn down an inquiry for his consulting services. He set the handset on the desk and leaned back in the swivel chair. “Speaking.”

  “Excellent! My name is Dmitri Romanov, but my friends call me Dima. I am calling on behalf of my community. We would like to retain your services to help us.”

  “Which community?”

  “The Russian community.”

  Which was a large one in Las Vegas, at least three thousand people. Didn’t mean this call had anything to do with Yuri. “The problem?”

  “We are concerned about our image and our ability to run legitimate businesses because of recent negative publicity regarding one individual. We want to know where he spends his time in Las Vegas and if he is still conducting criminal activities. His name is Yuri Glaz—”

  “You called the wrong guy,” Braxton snapped, wishing he’d listened to his instincts and canned this call. “Got problems with Yuri? Call the cops. Better yet, call the D.A., who I hope skewers that bastard to the wall at his trial next month.”

  Drake strode into the room. To the caller, he said, “Give us a minute.�
�

  He tapped the mute button so he could talk to Brax privately. Dressed in dark trousers, a dress shirt and their dad’s tailored gray jacket, Drake rubbed his palm across his forehead. He wore his hair in a buzz cut, which only men with great-looking skulls could get by with, something Braxton learned when he was forced to buzz his hair, too, last August when he and Drake switched places. These days, Braxton’s dark brown hair had grown back and bad in a short faux-hawk cut, which in his humble opinion made him look like Adam Levine.

  “Maybe we should hear this guy out,” Drake said.

  “Over my dead body.”

  “Information is power.”

  Brax got the message. By hearing what this Dmitri guy had to say, they’d learn whatever dirt he might have on Yuri. If it was muddy enough, they could pass it on to the D.A. who could sling it at the upcoming trial.

  He pressed the speaker button.

  “Sorry, Dmitri, for my reaction,” he said, adopting a more professional tone, “although you probably understand why.”

  “Certainly, Braxton. I, too, am upset with Yuri’s unscrupulous ways. I am a respected businessman, ready to fund a significant venture, and I do not wish Yuri’s reputation or his current activities to stand in my way. I am prepared to pay you well for your investigative efforts.”

  Braxton looked at the north-facing window and the steady stream of cars traveling along Graces Avenue, their hum like white noise. Sometimes there was only one way out of a problem, and that was to go straight through the messy dead center of it.

  “I’m interested in the case,” he said, giving his brother a here-we-go look. “Fill me in on the details.”